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Essential Internet Marketing Acronyms Explained
If you're new to
Internet marketing, the many acronyms and
abbreviations often used in discussions on the
subject can be confusing. To help you get up to
speed quickly, here are the meanings of the most
important:
ASCII - American Standard Code for Information
Interchange - A universally recognized set of
digital codes that represent each of the letters,
punctuation marks, and other symbols you can type on
your computer. What people usually mean by "plain
text."
ASP - Application Service Provider - Company that
offers access to software applications and related
services over a network or the Internet.
B2B - Business to Business - Refers to trade between
businesses rather than between businesses and
consumers
B2C - Business to Consumer - Refers to businesses
selling products or services to end-user consumers.
CGI - Common Gateway Interface - A way web servers
pass information to and from application programs
(to process forms for example). CGI programs or
"scripts" can be written in several programming
languages, including C, C++, Java and Perl.
CPA - Cost Per Action - Cost to an advertiser for
each visitor that takes a specific action in
response to an ad, such as subscribing to an ezine,
requesting a free trial, or making a purchase. Also
used to describe advertising employing this model.
CPC - Cost Per Click - Cost to an advertiser for
each click on a promotional link by a site visitor
or newsletter reader. Also used to describe
advertising employing this model.
CPL - Cost Per Lead - Advertising expenditure
required to obtain each new sales lead.
CPM - Cost Per Thousand - The amount charged per
thousand impressions (showings) of an ad ("M" is the
Roman numeral for 1000). Whilst websites sell ad
impressions in blocks of 1000, with newsletters the
number of subscribers determines the final price.
Also used to describe advertising employing this
model.
CPS - Cost Per Sale - Advertising expenditure
divided by sales generated to determine the cost to
make each sale; or the commission payable for each
sale generated by an affiliate.
CR - Conversion Rate/ Ratio - The percentage of
respondents to an ad, or readers of a sales message
that complete the action desired (usually making a
purchase, but can also be subscribing to a
newsletter, for example).
CRM - Customer Relationship Management - Improving
interaction with customers through better
understanding, with the aim of increasing customer
satisfaction and loyalty (thus increasing profits).
CSS - Cascading Style Sheets - Used to globally
define how elements in a Web page are displayed
instead of relying on HTML code in the page. Makes
designs more flexible and reduces HTML file sizes.
CTR - Click-Through Rate/ Ratio - The percentage of
website visitors or newsletter readers who click on
a particular link. Used to measure response to ads
or sales messages.
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions - Often used as the
title of a page on websites that answers commonly
asked questions about a product or service.
FFA - Free-For-All Links - Web pages that allow
anyone to add a link back to their own website,
usually in exchange for accepting promotional
messages from the FFA page owner.
PFI - Pay For Inclusion - Paying to have web pages
included in a search engine's database and regularly
updated.
PPA - Pay-Per-Action - Affiliate commissions where a
set amount is paid for generating a specific action,
such as taking a free trial or subscribing to an
ezine. PPL, PPC and PPS are usually considered as
PPA.
PPI - Pay Per Impression - Where an advertiser pays
for each display (impression) of their advertisement
(usually a banner).
PPL - Pay-Per-Lead - Where a commission is paid for
each sales lead generated by an affiliate. A "lead"
is usually defined as somebody who signs up for a
free trial, or requests further information, etc.
PPC - Pay Per Click - Ad sales or affiliate
commissions where a set amount is paid for each
click on a promotional link by a consumer.
PPCSE - Pay Per Click Search Engine - A search
engine where the results are composed of advertisers
who pay a fee for each click on their listing. Using
a bidding system, the advertiser willing to pay the
most is ranked highest.
PPS - Pay-Per-Sale - Where a commission is paid for
each sale generated by an affiliate. The commission
is usually a percentage of the sale, although
sometimes it's a fixed amount.
ROI - Return on investment - How much profit is made
after advertising and other costs have been
subtracted. A measure of how successful a marketing
campaign is in terms of the returns on money spent.
RON - Run Of Network - Where ads (usually CPM
banners) are shown (rotated) across the pages of the
entire network of sites owned by a company, or
controlled by a particular advertising network.
Cheaper than only having the ad appear on selected
sites.
ROS - Run Of Site - Where ads are rotated across the
pages of a single site. Cheaper than only having the
ad appear on selected pages.
SE - Search Engine - A searchable database of pages
on the Web. Different from an Index (like Yahoo) in
that pages are not reviewed by a human editor before
inclusion.
SEM - Search Engine Marketing - Similar to SEO
(below), and sometimes used to emphasize that
generating quality targeted traffic is of greater
importance than simply obtaining high rankings. Can
also include PPCSEs and other search engine
advertising.
SEO - Search Engine Optimization - The process of
optimizing web pages to achieve high rankings in the
search results of a search engine, in order to
attract more visitors.
SEP - Search Engine Positioning - Getting your page
listed on the search engine results page. Similar to
SEO.
SERP - Search Engine Results Page - The page of
listings displayed upon completion of a search at a
search engine.
SSI - Server Side Include - A way for a web server
to include variable values and information from an
external source into a web page as it is requested
by the browser. Uses include automatic display of
data like the Last Modified date of the page, or
storing common page elements in their own files,
enabling site-wide updates by modifying a single
file.
USP - Unique Selling Proposition - The reason why
somebody should buy from you and not your
competition. The unique benefits that your products
or services offer consumers. What it is that makes
you special, different.
I suggest you print this article out and keep it
somewhere handy. Refer to it whenever you're not
quite sure what something stands for, and before you
know it you'll be an old hand!
© 2003 Azam Corry "Do it Better. Do it Faster. Do it
Right!"
Online since 1998, Azam Corry Helps Newbies Develop
a Winning
Web Marketing Strategy with Great Free Guides, Tools
and Resources.
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